(PHOTOS BY JESSIE DAVIS / THE VILLAGE REPORTER)
RESTORED TO FORMER GLORY … The Benfield Wines building, originally the Pilliod Opera House when it was built in 1896, has been slowly restored by the Benfields. A cupola initially graced the top corner of the building until it was hit by a tornado in 1920.
MOVING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK … Julie Benfield smiles from behind the counter at Benfield Wines, originally home to the Pilliod Opera House. She and husband Rob have been working to restore the building since moving their business there several years ago. Visible in the main room are the tin ceilings as well as the concrete slab on the floor which used to be the location of a vault when the building was Swanton Savings & Loan.
By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jesse@thevillagereporter.com
The former Pilliod Opera House – now home to Benfield Wines – was one of several historical locations throughout Fulton County that participated in the biennial Ohio Open Doors event on Saturday.
The statewide event is sponsored by the Ohio History Connection and partner organizations the Ohio Arts Council, Tourism Ohio, the Ohio Travel Association, and Heritage Ohio.
It was created in 2016 “to promote and inspire pride in Ohio’s heritage and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act” according to the official event website.
At Benfield Wines in Swanton, owner Julia Benfield was joined by mother and daughter Kathy and Jamie Blake with the Swanton Ohio Historical Society, as well as historical society Vice President Emily Sgro to share the history of the building, as well as plans for its future.
“We just did a whole bunch of renovations to try and bring back some of the historical aspects of the building,” Benfield said.
“We put the big garage doors in the side where the original business openings were, and we’re just trying to bring the building back to what it looked like when it was built.”
The building was constructed in 1896 as the Pilliod Opera House, although over the years it was also home to many businesses including a market, two different hardware stores, an auto supply store, a meat shop, and Swanton Savings & Loan. A concrete slab is still visible on the first floor from where the vault was located when it was the savings and loan.
On March 28, 1920, the building was hit by one of a major outbreak of tornadoes, which destroyed the cupola as well as a significant portion of the exterior wall.
According to Jamie, the building was a major social hub for the village. “Until 1928, the town did not have an auditorium or a gymnasium, so anything that you would have held in an auditorium or gymnasium was held upstairs,” she said. “Weddings, graduations, basketball games, wrestling matches, anything and everything.”
The lines for the basketball court are still easily visible on the upstairs floor, and the steps leading up to it are still the original stairs from 1896.
“They held the first graduation in 1897, and I believe we had one graduate,” Jamie said. Kathy said she still remembers visiting as a kid when it was an A&P store, which operated a chain of grocery stores across the country which operated from 1859 until 2015.
“They had to put things up real high and the put the toilet paper up high, and they had this long pole with a nail on it so you’d snag the toilet paper and they’d catch it – because it wasn’t going to break, you know?,” Kathy said. “I thought that was fun.”
Benfield said the upstairs was “a big reason” why she bought the building with husband Rob, who runs the business with her and whose winemaking was the impetus behind starting the business.
“My long-term plan is to turn that back into a venue, just as it was originally,” she said. Benfield plans to leave the basketball lines on the floor as they are part of the history of the building.
Other locations in Fulton County featured during the Ohio Open Doors event included CK Sweets, DeEttes Dream Diner, and the Trinity United Methodist Church in Swanton, the History Manor in Wauseon, the Bean Creek Valley History Center in Fayette, the Rice House in Metamora, and the former Toledo & Western Railroad Depot in Lyons.
